Delving into how defense secretary mattis has changed his position on Nuclear Weapon developments since becoming defense secretary. Among the highlights in the article, secretary mattis used to question the u. S. s nuclear ar san nal andcalled for certain elements to be removed or reduced . But since joining the trump administration, secretary mattis has seemingly reverse the his position and now supports building more. His u turn suggests it has become important as the u. S. Conference china and russia. You can read the article at business insider. Com. This hearing should get under way in just a moment. The meeting will come to order. The Committee Meets today to hear testimony on the Administrations National Defense Strategy and Nuclear Posture review, both of which were recently released. We welcome back the secretary of defense and the advice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff to discuss these important documents. I cannot count the number of times i have heard members of this
Review. This is about 90 minutes. The meeting will come to order. The Committee Meets today to hear testimony on the Administrations National Defense Strategy and Nuclear Posture review, both of which were recently released. We welcome back the secretary of defense and the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff to discuss these important documents. I cannot count the number of times i have heard members of this Committee Talk about the importance of having a Defense Strategy to help guide decisions that we, in the executive branch, have to make. Now, we have one. It is a component of the Broader National Security strategy released in december and it has within it the Nuclear Posture review, the first of its kind since 2010. A lot has changed since 2010 and both documents come at a critical time. As the National Security strategy points out, quote, americas military remains the strongest in the world. However, u. S. Advantages are shrinking as rival states modernize and build up the
Part one will be the gentleman sitting next to me, senator tom cotten from arkansas. Part two after his keynote address as well as q a will be a lively debate on Missile Defense with joe and rebecca from the henriksen institute. We want to spend as much time with senator cotton as possible so ill keep my remarks short. Washington is faced with severe challenges when it comes to missiles throughout the world. Obviously north korea is very much in the news due to the development of the short, medium and longrange missiles and the ability to actually hit the homeland at some point. Senator cotton has been at the forefront of advocating for a robust strategy. His remarks will be around 20 minutes. That will open the floor for questions for about 25 minutes. Keep in mind during the q a, the state your name and affiliation as we are on the record as you can see by the cameras. Also if time is limited, please keep your question compact and precise. With that, senator cotton. Thank you all for